I was reading the Asian Literary Review by Jack Picone today on the reportage on Burma and here is the part that did strange things to my heart:
'In a run-down border clinic I saw a 14-year-old boy, given only local anaethetic, having a leg amputated with a blunt saw. The boy had stepped on a landmine during his flight from Burma. He didn't utter sound during the operation, but his eyes had the glazed expression of someone who is in such agony he is incapable of feeling more pain.
I realised then I had seen the same expression many time before.'
This followed with images not for the faint hearted. There was a picture of the operation where the fibula and tibia were jutting out like the two pieces of bone you get after cleaning off a chicken wing. It was crude and heartwrenching as the glazed look on the face of the boy on the mirroring page stared out of the page.
Can we do something? Anything at all?
'In a run-down border clinic I saw a 14-year-old boy, given only local anaethetic, having a leg amputated with a blunt saw. The boy had stepped on a landmine during his flight from Burma. He didn't utter sound during the operation, but his eyes had the glazed expression of someone who is in such agony he is incapable of feeling more pain.
I realised then I had seen the same expression many time before.'
This followed with images not for the faint hearted. There was a picture of the operation where the fibula and tibia were jutting out like the two pieces of bone you get after cleaning off a chicken wing. It was crude and heartwrenching as the glazed look on the face of the boy on the mirroring page stared out of the page.
Can we do something? Anything at all?
No comments:
Post a Comment